Being a veterinarian (or vet) is not all about playing with puppies and kittens all day long (although sometimes it does happen). This job requires passion, interest in animals, and a strong work ethic.
Being a vet is reading, but it also can be extremely challenging. The job will test your mental and physical health to the limits if you’re not careful with your work-life balance. So if you’re interested in this profession or you’re already a vet but struggle keeping it together, we have a few tips and recommendations.
We followed the habits of several veterinarians who managed to accept all the aspects of the job and took a look into how they balance everything. So here’s our take on how to keep the passion for the job going and have a healthy lifestyle as well (yes, you can have it all!).
Learn How to Manage your Hours
Life as a veterinarian is rather hectic. You are a jack of all trades (more or less) and your patients don’t have the right tools to tell you where it hurts or how it feels. This adds a layer of difficulty, compared to human medicine, where it’s easier to bond with the patients.
A day in the life of a typical veterinarian starts with the most difficult cases in the morning (surgeries, advanced treatments, and so on), continue with regular consultations in the afternoon, and may end up with home visits in the evening (for animals and pet parents that can’t come to the clinic).
However, your workday doesn’t end since you never know when an emergency will happen. Most vets are on-call day or night and can’t take time off unless they have a reliable replacement.
How to Deal With This
It is important to draw a clear line between work and personal life. While you can’t just shut everything off when you leave the clinic, you can try to have more hands-on staff that can take over some tasks.
Also, you should guide your patients’ humans towards a reliable online vet consultation service. This type of service is more affordable and can easily identify early signs of illness and provide the necessary instructions and treatment. As a result, your clinic will only deal with the must-see cases, which should declutter your schedule.
Learn to Recognize the Emotional Toll
Vets have two types of patients: animals and humans. Your main concern is the health and well-being of the animals, but pet parents (humans) also need your attention.
Plus, things don’t always go well. Animals won’t always like you. In fact, depending on past history and first impressions, many will be fearful and quite guarded around you. On the other hand, you may also have to deal with difficult pet parents.
Also, there is the darker side of sick animals whose chances of making a full recovery are slim to none. Add to this the stress of dealing with irresponsible, neglectful pet parents and it’s easy to see how this job can turn you into a villain (a less accurate description of what’s scientifically known as compassion fatigue).
How to Deal With This
You may often find yourself drained and empty at the end of the day. This is absolutely normal considering the fact that you have to split your energy into two different streams. Yet, it’s important to learn to recognize this state and find ways to deal with it.
While it may be difficult, it is crucial that you make self-care a priority. This can be anything from having coffee with a friend, spending time with your family, enjoying a spa day, or finding time to exercise and/or meditate.
Learn How To Live a Healthy Life
This is important for any busy professional who wants to avoid burnout, fatigue, or other negative effects brought forth by their work environment. Of course, each job has its own challenges.
Veterinarians may experience swollen ankles, achy feet, stiff shoulders, and other problems from standing all day and moving to accommodate animals’ needs. Plus, you never know when you’ll get scratched, bitten, kicked, or worse.
That’s why it’s important to learn how to stay healthy as a veterinarian and address the challenges of your own profession.
How to Deal With This
Overall, it’s important to keep active and adopt a preventive work practice. Recognize the bad habits and patterns that may bring issues in the future and address them before becoming a problem.
Key Takeaway
Physical and mental health can be achieved even when you have such a taxing job as being a veterinarian. It just requires a bit more discipline than in other professions and the determination to treat yourself the same way as you treat your non-talking patients.
Be patient with your body and soul and learn to recognize the situations where you can’t change anything for the better, regardless of how much you want to. Also, knowing you did your best will give you some peace of mind even in the toughest of situations.
